System and Method for IP Telephony Ping

1. A system for establishing the availability of a node to receive a voice over internet protocol (VoIP) call, the system comprising: one or more VoIP nodes, each VoIP node identified by an endpoint address; a plurality of work distributors operative to maintain a set of endpoint addresses, the plurality of work distributors synchronizing the endpoint addresses among the plurality of work distributors to maintain a consistent set of endpoint addresses; and a plurality of VoIP ping servers executing VoIP ping software operative to retrieve an endpoint address from a given one of the plurality of work distributors, attempt a VoIP call to the endpoint address and store a result of the VoIP call.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the plurality of work distributors maintains the endpoint addresses in one or more formats selected from of the group comprising an E.164 address, a private dial plan address, a SIP URL and a MGCP address.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein the VoIP ping software extracts call metrics from a successful call that provide information regarding the quality of a VoIP connection.

4. The system of claim 1 comprising a plurality of result merger agents operative to receive results of a plurality VoIP call from the plurality of VoIP ping servers, process the results and generate an alarm in response to a call failure.

5. The system of claim 4 wherein each result merger agent synchronizes the results it receives with results that other result merger agents receive.

6. The system of claim 1 comprising a plurality of result merger agents operative to receive call metrics from a VoIP call that provide information regarding the quality of a VoIP connection, analyze the metrics against a set of threshold data and generate and alarm in response a given call metric falling below a given threshold within the set of threshold data.

7. A method for establishing the availability of a node to receive a voice over internet protocol (VoIP) call, the method comprising: attempting to establish a plurality of VoIP calls to a given node that is the target of the VoIP call; determining whether a given one of the plurality of attempts to establish the VoIP calls is successful; performing a call teardown once any of the plurality of VoIP calls is established; and generating an alarm in response to a call failure of a given one of the plurality of attempts.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein attempting, determining and generating is conducted at periodic intervals.

9. The method of claim 7 wherein attempting to establish a VoIP call comprises dialing one or more of a E.164 address, a private number plan address, a SIP URL, and a MGCP endpoint address.

10. The method of claim 7 wherein attempting to establish a VoIP call is conducted according to one or more of the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and H.323 protocol.

11. The method of claim 7 comprising extracting metrics from a VoIP call that provide information regarding the quality of a VoIP connection.

12. The method of claim 11 comprising generating an alarm in response to the metrics falling below a threshold.

13. A method for establishing the availability of a node to receive a voice over internet protocol (VoIP) call, the method comprising: attempting to establish a plurality of VoIP calls to a given node that is the target of the VoIP call; determining whether a given one of the plurality of attempts to establish the VoIP calls is successful; generating an alarm in response to a call failure of a given one of the plurality of attempts; and wherein determining and generating is conducted at periodic intervals.

14. The method of claim 13 comprising performing a call teardown once the VoIP call is established.

15. The method of claim 13 wherein attempting to establish a VoIP call comprises dialing one or more of a E.164 address, a private number plan address, a SIP URL, and a MGCP endpoint address.

16. The method of claim 13 wherein attempting to establish a VoIP call is conducted according to one or more of the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and H.323 protocol.

17. The method of claim 13 comprising extracting metrics from a VoIP call that provide information regarding the quality of a VoIP connection.

18. The method of claim 17 comprising generating an alarm in response to the metrics falling below a threshold.

19. A method for establishing the availability of a node to receive a voice over internet protocol (VoIP) call, the method comprising: attempting to establish a plurality of VoIP calls to a given node that is the target of the VoIP call; determining whether a given one of the plurality of attempts to establish the VoIP calls is successful; generating an alarm in response to a call failure of a given one of the plurality of attempts; and wherein attempting to establish any of the plurality of VoIP calls comprises dialing one or more of a E.164 address, a private number plan address, a SIP URL, and a MGCP endpoint address.

20. The method of claim 19 comprising performing a call teardown once the VoIP call is established.

21. The method of claim 19 wherein attempting, determining and generating is conducted at periodic intervals.

22. The method of claim 19 wherein attempting to establish a VoIP call is conducted according to one or more of the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and H.323 protocol.

23. The method of claim 19 comprising extracting metrics from a VoIP call that provide information regarding the quality of a VoIP connection.

24. The method of claim 23 comprising generating an alarm in response to the call metrics falling below a threshold.

25. A method for establishing the availability of a node to receive a voice over internet protocol (VoIP) call, the method comprising: attempting to establish a plurality of VoIP calls to a given node that is the target of the VoIP call; determining whether a given one of the plurality of attempts to establish the VoIP calls is successful; generating an alarm in response to a call failure of a given one of the plurality of attempts; and wherein attempting to establish a VoIP call is conducted according to the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP).

26. The method of claim 25 comprising performing a call teardown once the VoIP call is established.

27. The method of claim 25 wherein attempting, determining and generating is conducted at periodic intervals.

28. The method of claim 25 wherein attempting to establish any of the plurality of VoIP calls comprises dialing one or more of a E.164 address, a private number plan address, SIP URL, and a MGCP endpoint address.

29. The method of claim 25 comprising extracting metrics from a VoIP call that provide information regarding the quality of a VoIP connection.

30. The method of claim 29 comprising generating an alarm in response to the metrics falling below a threshold.

31. A system for establishing the availability of a node to receive a voice over internet protocol (VoIP) call, the system comprising: one or more VoIP nodes, each VoIP node identified by one or more of a E.164 address, a private number plan address, a SIP URL, and a MGCP endpoint address; and a VoIP ping server executing VoIP ping software operative to attempt a VoIP call to a given one of the one or more VoIP nodes, the VoIP ping software further operative to generate an alarm in response to a call failure.

32. The system of claim 31 wherein the VoIP ping software extracts call metrics from a VoIP call that provide information regarding the quality of a VoIP connection.

33. The system of claim 32 wherein the VoIP ping software generates an alarm in response to the call metrics falling below a threshold.